Our Children's Names:

This is a post I have been wanting to do for a while now.
I follow a few blogs who have posted about how they came up with their children's names and thought it would be so much fun to share our stories as well. Especially since we get asked ALL the time about their names!
So here goes...

Charli Adele

For whatever reason, choosing our girl names came very easy for Steven and I.
We actually had two solid girl names picked out before we even got pregnant the first time! Out of both names we had also agreed that Charli Adele would be used first.

How we decided on Charli: Steven's grandfather's (who he calls Daddy) name is Charles. Daddy is a huge part in Steven's life and always has been. One day, he and Steven were talking and Daddy mentioned how neat it would be to have a girl in the family named Charlie (there is already a lineage through the boys in the family) but no girls named after him. Steven absolutely loved the idea and mentioned it to me, which I fell in love with immediately! I then proceeded to tell him how I had actually always loved the name 'Charlie' for a girl after seeing a Friends episode (back in High School), but had actually never thought about using it, it was just a name I really liked for a girl.
Now that the name had a very special family meaning for us I fell in love with it even more and knew I wanted that name for a little girl! We spell it 'Charli' because my name ends in an 'i' along with all of the females on my mom's side; Debbi, Traci, Kelli, Cari, Lori (you get the idea!). So I thought I would  carry on the family tradition! So alas, Charli was chosen!
So to answer the question we get asked the most... No, Charli is not short for Charlotte, it is short for Charles (and yes that is what we tell everyone)! ;)

How we decided on Adele: Adele came from my Maternal Great Grandmother. My late Great Aunt's middle name, along with one of my cousins middle name is Adele. Ever since High School I knew I wanted to use Adele as a middle name if I ever had a little girl. Thankfully Steven had no objections of  the name and it was easily finalized that Adele would be her middle name!

I love everything about Charli Adele's name; the family history it holds, the uniqueness. It fits her perfectly and I couldn't imagine her name being anything other than
Charli Adele!

Crew Benjamin

Boy names on the other hand...
When we got pregnant with Charli we obviously knew if it was a girl what her name would be, but the planners that Steven and I both are, we started thinking of boy names right away because we really didn't have any set in stone. This caused a lot of frustration because we could not agree on anything. We made a list of 'oh we kind of like that name' but decided on never talking about boy names again until we knew for sure. So when we got pregnant this go around we agreed from the beginning that we would not talk about boy names again until we knew if it was a boy or a girl (although I still secretly started thinking about them again and adding to our list from pregnancy #1 because that is just how I am!) haha. So when we found out we were in fact having a boy, we re-entered the boy name discussion...

Names we both 'kind of liked and agreed on but just weren't 100% sure on' were; Carter, Carson, Cooper, Cameron, Camden, and Colin. And yes, we were both on board with doing another "C" name because I liked the idea of having all "C"'s (because our other girl name was Caroline).
My favorite name was Chapman (Steven HATED this name and used his veto) and Steven's favorite name was Cannon (I HATED this name, all I could think about was him being teased as "Cannon Ball", so I vetoed his top pick).

How we decided on Crew: So a little back story first; When we were pregnant with Charli and didn't know she was a girl Steven had mentioned the name Cru for a boy because it was the name of a guy in his all time favorite childhood movie; Rad Racing.
I had said absolutely not and that I didn't like it!  So the name never made the list...
But now that we were in fact pregnant with a boy he brought up the name again, this time changing the spelling to Crewe because he knew I hated C-R-U (it just looks like you stopped spelling a word to me). So at this point I did add Crewe to our list because I actually really started to like it spelt a different way. Steven and I went back and forth about the names and spellings so many times and he actually started to not like Crewe spelt that way. I then told him I loved it spelt C-R-E-W but he wasn't 100% on board. I then reminded him that I hated the name years ago and the fact that I was now in love with it (as long as it was spelt this way) was a huge deal and he needed to consider that. He agreed!

We did take a couple weeks off from talking about names to see what would stick in our heads and we both kept coming back to Crew! I just had this feeling and I could see our son named Crew.
And as un-common as it is, and the fact that it had no family meaning (which was a big deal to me at first) we still fell in love with it more and more as each day passed!
And alas, Crew was chosen!

How we decided on Benjamin: Benjamin was my Maternal Great Grandfather's middle name, is also one of my cousin's middle name, and has ALWAYS been a top boys name for me because of that! Steven was never in love with the name Benjamin, but slowly started to go with it. He finally came around and we finally made our decision that Benjamin would be our son's middle name!

It is so funny to think of all of the other boy names we had picked out, because our little guy looks nothing like a Carter or Carson or Cameron... He looks like Crew!

I love everything about his name as well; it is unique, strong, masculine, and it fits him perfectly!

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And for fun, a few pictures of him wearing a onesie of how his name was born...